🎯 Failure Takes Focus | Learning to F.O.C.U.S. on What Matters

Focus turns ordinary effort into extraordinary results.

Oct 28, 2025

“I should exercise more and eat better.
I should call my parents (or an old friend) this week.
I should get my finances in order and make a budget.”

👆This is called shoulding yourself.

I first heard the term from Tony Robbins. Here’s a clip.

His point was that everyone has a list of shoulds, but all they do when they repeat in our heads is cause us to feel shame and anger at ourselves.

If we only see ourselves as the person who should do something, we’re giving our power away to that thing—and actually keeping ourselves from growth.

Instead of sitting in a pile of your own shoulds, shift your focus to what must be done.

That Time I Should Myself

Like a moth beating itself against a porch light at night, I sit in a dark room staring and doomscrolling the time away.

During the day it’s like a voice says, “I should check social media.”

Occasionally, there’s utility.
Most of the time, the habit loop is steering me where it wants.

“I should spend less time on social media.”

Yes—I should myself.

But I’ve turned my “should happen” into a “must happen” by applying F.O.C.U.S.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” — Viktor Frankl

Power Acronym 23: F.O.C.U.S.

F — Fundamentals

The Heroic Fundamentals are Eating, Moving, Sleeping, Breathing, Focusing, Celebrating, and Prospering.

You may have noticed that Focusing is listed. That’s because focus itself is a practice.

When I catch myself scrolling too much, I’ve started using the Heroic Fundamentals as a diagnostic checklist. Each one reveals something about how I’m managing my energy and attention.

The point isn’t perfection—it’s awareness and progress.

Eating: Habits thrive on routine, as do meals. What would eliminating social media during breakfast, lunch, and dinner look like?
Moving: Social media spikes when there’s downtime. Am I resting—or just stirring my nervous system with passive stimulation?
Sleeping: Screens before bed wreck sleep. My phone turns to grayscale at 8:30pm, and I read before bed instead.
Breathing: Triggers to check my phone can become cues to breathe instead. It’s like a micro-meditation.
Celebrating: Recognize what works. Share the wins. That’s how new behavior locks in.
Prospering: The root of prosper means “to go forward with hope.” It’s never too late to make a better change, no matter how small.

Once you’re grounded in the fundamentals, the next step is Order—creating the structure that makes focus possible.

O — Order

“You must determine where you are going in your life, because you cannot get there unless you move in that direction. Random wandering will not move you forward.”
— Jordan Peterson

Have you ever had your room or house so dirty you didn’t know where to start?
It almost felt easier to do nothing and let the mess grow.

But we both know how satisfying it feels when your space is clean and orderly.
A clean environment creates clearer thinking.

If you’re facing failure, start small.
Find a win you can control—something you can bring into order—and momentum will follow.

Once you have Order, the challenge becomes Consistency.

C — Consistency

“The secret of getting results that last is to never stop making improvements.…
Small habits don’t add up. They compound. That’s the power of atomic habits.”
— James Clear, Atomic Habits

Imagine a grain of sand in a heap.
Remove one, it’s still a heap.
Remove thousands, one by one—when does it stop being a heap?

No one knows exactly—but the metaphor holds.
Success isn’t one grand event. It’s repetition.
Rep after rep, step after step, grain after grain.

Consistency compounds.
It turns effort into excellence.

Now comes the next challenge—keeping your attention Undivided.

U — Undivided

In the face of failure, you can’t afford to be distracted by anything that doesn’t move you closer to your goal.
You won’t stumble into success. You must choose it.

Research shows that self-discipline outperforms IQ as a predictor of long-term success.
In one study, self-discipline explained more than twice the variance in final grades compared with IQ. (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005.)

That proves the point:

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
— Tim Notke

Focus requires devotion—and discipline that’s undivided.

S — Solution

If all you can do is point out the problems, complain about the problems, and claim you’re powerless to change them…
you might be the problem.

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you’re right.”
— Henry Ford

Winning results don’t owe you anything.

“Winning demands total obsession. You can’t be interested in winning. You must be obsessed with it.”
— Tim S. Grover, Winning

Take your mind off what failure looks like for a moment.
Visualize the next best version of yourself.
Now let your next action—and the next, and the next—lead you toward becoming that person.

Do you want to solve the problem?
Have a thriving relationship?
Go to the next level?
Succeed? Win?

You’ll need strong Fundamentals, clear Order, an appetite for Consistency, Undivided attention, and a Solution-based mindset.